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Nintendo is #1 for Turkey week.

By IGN Staff

Occupying third place in console sales, Nintendo's September 25 price cut to $99 seemed like an act of desperation. Even though GameCubes were flying off shelves in record numbers during the first week of the price drop, many speculated that this was simply a quick surge in reaction to the price drop and sales would soon return to normal numbers. However, Nintendo has surprised many with its steady GameCube sales that have shown no signs of tapering off -- even after two months.

Today, Nintendo announced that its console had surpassed the sales of the Playstation 2, which makes the GameCube the top selling console for Thanksgiving week. According to internal sales data (not NPD), Nintendo's console sold more than half a million units during the week of November 24 (which is almost as much as its Game Boy Advance that tallied 600,000 units over the same time period).

"All along, our business plan for this year was to maximize consumer interest and sales during the fourth quarter," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "But frankly, we're overwhelmed by how successful we've been. Our price cut of Nintendo GameCube has ignited sales to the degree that it may turn out to be the best-selling console for the entire month of November. We're tracking to sell more systems in the last eight weeks of the year than we did in the previous 10 months combined."

Hopefully, this positive trend will continue throughout the holiday season, fueled by Nintendo's recent release of Mario Kart: Double Dash and 1080: Avalanche -- and the upcoming Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Pokemon Colosseum. Stay tuned to IGNcube for more Nintendo-centric updates.